VIVO IPL 2016 Orange Cap Holder/Highest Run Scorer: Virat Kohli is now the Orange Cap holder

Eight star-studded teams are all set to collide in the 9th edition of the Indian Premier League. Chennai Super Kings and Rajasthan Royals, two of the most formidable teams in IPL history, will not be featuring owing to their suspension for 2 years in the aftermath of the spot-fixing controversy. However, we will certainly not be missing out on most of the players from the tainted franchises as they have found new teams after the IPL auction and the draft carried out for the replacement franchises, Rising Pune Supergiants and Gujarat Lions.

T20 cricket is known to be a batsman's game and the IPL has seen a lot of stellar performances from the men wielding the bat across the past 8 editions of the tournament. Although the grandest T20 league in the world has offered a fair competition between bat and ball, it is the batsmen who have had a slight edge. Among the different types of batsmen that we have seen in the history of IPL cricket so far are the big hitters who only believe in boundaries, the accumulators who emphasise more on ones and twos and those who have amalgamated both qualities in their batting.

Out of the many awards which are given out for performing well in the IPL, the Orange Cap is among the most prestigious ones. The award is handed out to the batsman who ends up being the leading run scorer in a particular season. More often than not, the winner of the Orange Cap turns out to be someone who does not represent the eventual champions. In fact, there has been only one instance of a player from the champion team receiving the award - Robin Uthappa in the 2014 IPL which was won by his team Kolkata Knight Riders.

Royal Challengers Bangalore opener Chris Gayle has been the most successful player in terms of laying claim to the Orange Cap prize. The hard-hitting Jamaican batsman has won the award twice, that too in successive years - 2011 and 2012. Even in the other seasons, Gayle has remained among the top contenders for the Orange Cap. The West Indian also holds the record for the most runs in a single IPL season with 733, one that he shares with Australian southpaw Mike Hussey who took an extra game to get there.

The first ever winner of the coveted award was yet another Aussie, Shaun Marsh, who scored 616 runs in the inaugural season to bag the Orange Cap. Legendary Indian batsman Sachin Tendulkar has also won the award in the year 2010 when he scored as many as 618 runs for the Mumbai Indians. The Orange Cap winner in the 2015 edition of the tournament was the skipper of the Sunrisers Hyderabad team, David Warner, who scored 562 runs in an otherwise dismal season for his team.

Interestingly enough, four Australian cricketers have won the Orange Cap and all of them were left-handed batsmen - Marsh, Hayden, Hussey and Warner. Only two right-handed batsmen have received the award so far and both of them were Indians - Tendulkar and Uthappa. CSK and RCB have bagged the most Orange Caps so far in the IPL with 2 each; however, unfortunately, only the latter franchise may be able to add to their tally.

Virat Kohli is slowly inching towards a monumental 1000-run tally in this year’s IPL with 919 runs in the tournament already. Kohli is the top contender to win the Orange Cap this year followed by teammate AB de Villiers who’s at 2nd. David Warner, Rohit Sharma and Ajinkya Rahane are 3rd, 4th and 5th among the leading run-getters respectively.

Orange Cap, Most Runs in IPL 2016

Rank	Player	Matches	Runs	Strike Rate
1	Virat Kohli (RCB)	15	919	151.90
2	David Warner (SRH)	15	779	149.23
3	AB de Villiers (RCB)	15	682	170.07
4	Rohit Sharma(MI)	14	489	132.88
5	Ajinkya Rahane(RPS)	14	480	126.64

*updated till Match 59, GL vs SRH